China has succeeded the remarkable objective of landing a craft on the far side of the Moon. Which will greatly contribute to our knowledge of the Moon. Besides congratulating China's space agency, we should maybe stop underestimating China and its scientific capabilities, and stop thinking that China can only achieve things through the theft of US and European know-how.

The Chang’e-4 probe, a program named after the Chinese goddess of the moon, landed and sent a close-up photo of the far side of the moon back to ground control via the Queqiao communication relay satellite.

Unlike the near side of the moon that always faces the earth and offers many flat areas to touch down on, the far side, or dark side, is mountainous and rugged.

This portion of the moon has never been reached by a man-made probe before, neither by the United States nor the former Soviet Union, even during the golden era of lunar exploration in the 1960-70s when the United States landed men on the other side of the moon.

Besides congratulating China's space agency, we should maybe stop underestimating China and its scientific capabilities, and stop thinking that China can only achieve things through the theft of US and European know-how.

Well, they're still where the U.S. was a half century ago in this regard, but I have little doubt they'll catch up eventually, not just from the industrial espionage that you describe, but also because of "sea turtles" (Chinese students who study in the West and then return home to work) and now improvement of their own higher education system.

Writer, technologist, educator, gadfly.
President of New World University: http://newworld.ac